Humane Views of Prostitution Come to Broadway and Television News; S/M
Chic Takes a New Turn

A New Prostitution Musical Comes to Broadway

I was just in New York for a week, and while I was there I went to see
The Life, the latest in what seems to be a grand tradition of Broadway
musicals about street prostitution. I don't really know all the details
about the previous shows with prostitute heroines -- shows like The
World of Suzie Wong and Never on Sunday -- but I have to say that I was
pleasantly surprised at much of what The Life had to say about the world
of street prostitution, and glad to think of its point of view being
energetically and entertainingly offered up to some 7000 people a week
paying $80 a pop at the historic Ethel Barrymore Theatre.

Critics have been quick to dismiss The Life as one more cliche' d
serving up of the prostitute-as-heroine fairy tale, and to some extent
they're right. We're talking Broadway musical here, not gritty drama
verite', so the play is all about showy pizzazz and sexy costume rather
than subtle nuance and complex character development. You've got your
well-intentioned, ethically impeccable lead woman who's only whoring for
the moment, to get herself and her boyfriend (not yet a pimp) through a
time of financial difficulty. You've got your bevy of tough, streetwise
hookers with generally appealing taking-care-of-number-one and
taking-care--of-business attitude. You've got your strutting,
manipulative pimps with their various degrees of misogynistic nastiness.
You've got your sweet ingenue who hits the New York streets straight off
a bus from the midwest, a Little Red Riding Hood ripe to be plucked from
the vine by the various Big Bad Wolves. All the fixings of the standard
prostitution soap-operatic melodrama.

But inside this basic construct there happens to also be a surprising
amount of gutsy, sympathetic representation of prostitution as (more or
less) one more difficult job in a difficult world, with an underlying
unromantic, matter-of-fact message running something like "why doesn't
the world just get over itself and leave everyone alone to get on with
their lives."

Many of the songs in the show's long first act are in fact nothing less
than anthems sounding the basic themes the prostitute rights movement
has been trying to publicize for some time. "My Body," the song played
to millions nationwide during the Tony Awards show in June (The Life led
the pack with 12 Tony nominations), enthusiastically makes the basic
case that what a woman does with her body -- including trading sex for
money -- is nobody's business but her own. "Why Don't They Leave Us
Alone" argues that the cat-and-mouse game of police chasing after and
harassing prostitutes accomplishes nothing more than making the lives of
prostitutes miserable and driving them into greater dependency on pimps.
"You Can't Get to Heaven" makes fun of street evangelists trying to save
fallen women from the "degrading" world of prostitution. "The Oldest
Profession" offers a sympathetic, unglorified view of prostitution as
difficult, tiring, repetitious and occasionally dangerous work -- a hard
way to make a living, no more, no less.

Beyond the messages of the individual songs, The Life paints a picture
of a strong, if fractious, sisterhood of women, despised and rejected by
proper society, helping each other through hard times with police,
pimps, and clients. Unfortunately, the themes established during the
first act are largely ignored during the second -- a truly simple-minded
melodrama in which the heroine, despite valiant attempts at standing up
for herself, is jilted by her boyfriend for the blonde ingenue, and then
progressively degraded by the abusive, all-powerful king of the big time
pimps, until she miraculously escapes the clutches of both the man and
the life (with the help of a self-sacrificing sister in revolt) in the
nick of time. But at least up until the intermission, a more
thoughtful, non-moralistic, and essentially respectful picture gets to
be painted.

The Life has been running for three months, and has become well
established as one of Broadway's current hit shows. It's grossing a
more-than-respectable $350,000 a week, and selling over 80% of available
seats, which means that some 7000 people a week are hearing and seeing
what the show has to say. And the show received a big boost early in
June when Lillias White (hard-working whore, Sonja) and Chuck Cooper
(nasty big-boss pimp, Memphis) won Tony Awards for Best Featured Actor
and Best Featured Actress in a Musical.

Fortunately, the energy and spark of the cast is a real plus, and even
highly critical Ben Brantley of the New York Times admires what he calls
"a raw, self-delighted vitality that compels attention." Judging from
the performance I saw, tourists and Manhattanites alike are quite
attentive indeed -- hooting encouragement when the women proclaim their
right to do with their bodies as they please, laughing in friendly
amazement when Sonja calculates that she has had sex with 15,000 men
over the years, and applauding like partisans at a decriminalization
rally when hookers and pimps together call for the police to leave them
alone.

Of course one popular musical is not going to miraculously change the
people's general perception of prostitutes and prostitution, or persuade
the American mainstream that this issue needs to be addressed in a more
realistic and humane way than harassing street whores and locking them
up from time to time. Still, thinking back to the 1960's, when teenage
gangs were as stereotyped, demonized, and dehumanized in the public's
perception as prostitution is today, the popularity and winning human
sympathy of West Side Story -- for all that musical's undeniable romance
and idealization -- really did help mainstream, middle-class Americans
think of youth gangs as a social issue needing to be addressed in social
terms, rather than as a moral issue needing to be dealt with simply by
judicial punishment. The basic stance of The Life about street
prostitution is, all in all, quite similar to West Side Story's take on
street gangs, complete with its challenge to middle-class arrogance and
pretentious propriety. Perhaps, in a smaller way, it will have a
similar effect on the public.

20/20 Strikes a Blow for Decriminalization

A more realistic and journalistic step forward in changing public
attitudes toward prostitution is evidenced in the "Sex for Sale" segment
of ABC's news magazine, 20/20 on June 27th. Produced for 20/20 by Mark
Golden, who seems to have known exactly what he wanted to say and how to
say it, and featuring 20/20 correspondent John Stossel, the show
featured a long list of articulate prostitute rights activists and all
but endorsed decriminalization of prostitution as an effective
alternative to the classic approach of judicial punishment.

Touted as "a provocative report that could change your mind about 'sex
for sale,'" 20/20 offered an unusually straightforward opportunity for
advocates of decriminalization to present their case, including Norma
Jean Almodovar (organizer of the recent International Congress on
Prostitution and leading figure in COYOTE's Los Angeles chapter), former
San Jose Chief of Police Joe McNamara, San Francisco District Attorney
Terence Hallinan, brothel owners Jillian Bradley and Dennis Hoff,
outspoken client advocates Hugh Loebner and Joe Lavezzo, and San
Francisco COYOTE activists Veronica Monet and Carol Leigh. The role of
token spokesperson for the classic
punishment/morality/degradation/decline of civilized society case was,
appropriately enough, handed to Utah's conservative Republican Senator
Orrin Hatch.

Prostitution "denigrates marriage," Hatch predictably asserted. "It
denigrates courtship. It denigrates families. It denigrates young
women. There are things in this life that are right to do and there are
things that are wrong to do. A good society is one that stands for
moral principles."

Ah, yes. But as correspondent John Stossel immediately pointed out,
"increasingly another viewpoint is being heard. Prostitutes are saying
what they do with their bodies is none of our business." It's a line
straight out of "My Body," the theme song from The Life.

Veronica Monet presents the basic case of a woman's right to do with her
body as she chooses, as long as she isn't hurting anyone. "If I can
have the right to have an abortion... I can have the right [to make
sexual decisions] about my body," including what Stossel describes as
"the right to exploit [her] body for monetary gain." As Stossel
pointedly notes, "Football players do it. Boxers do it. Why can't a
prostitute?"

Answering the argument from feminists (and from Orrin Hatch) that
prostitution is degrading to women, Norma Jean Almodovar notes that not
very many women "would choose to scrub toilets for a living.
Nevertheless, because a lot of people might think that's degrading we
don't put them in jail."

The San Francisco Task Force on Prostitution's recommendation for
decriminalization is noted as an example of prostitutes getting "some
support in surprising places." District Attorney Hallinan and former
Police Chief McNamara add the legitimacy of the criminal justice
establishment to the case, arguing that the criminalization of
prostitution creates more problems than it solves. "What we're doing
now," says McNamara, "is worse than prostitution. It drives up the
profits. It drives up the potential for corruption. It invites
violence.... We can never stop this. It's a consensual transaction
between two people. It's not a crime like robbery or stealing or
assault or rape. We're diverting a lot of resources going through the
motions of trying to almost fool the public into thinking that we're
doing something about these problems when, in fact, we're not."

Turning to the issues of violence and drugs so often associated with
prostitution, Stossel assigns responsibility for these problems not to
prostitution itself but to its criminalization, "because the law drives
prostitution underground, into the criminal world, where everyone's
hiding from the police.... Such problems occur much less often where
sex for money is legal." Legalized prostitution in Nevada and Holland
are presented as positive alternatives that "eliminates the exploitation
of the ladies" and promotes safe sex as well. "Here we see a doctor,"
says one prostitute at Dennis Hoff's Bunny Ranch. "Out there, who knows
who has what and if they're really using safe sex."

Of course there are the familiarly seedy shots of street prostitutes in
skimpy clothing soliciting guys in cars. But 20/20 points out that,
even by police estimates, street prostitution constitutes only a small
percentage of the larger "sex for sale" picture and pays attention to
indoor prostitution as well. Camera crew and audience are taken on a
tour of a distinctly pleasant, upscale "five-story multilelvel
townhouse" in a well-to-do neighborhood owned by cheerful and
unapologetic Jillian Bradley. The receptionist at the door is Bradley's
daughter. What could be more wholesome?

When Stossel, playing devil's advocate, accuses Bradley of "contributing
to the decline of America" by selling sex, Bradley pauses a moment
before smiling and answering quietly, "that's ridiculous. Sex has been
around forever and prostitution has been around forever." And when
Hatch himself asserts that "if something is made legal it means society
has basically approved of it," Stossel pulls him up short, noting curtly
that "we allow smoking cigarettes. We don't approve of that."

"Let's give women their sexuality any way they want it," says Veronica
Monet. "If people want to exchange money, housing, marriage licenses,
wedding rings... fine. As long as two consenting adults have decided,
'This works great for me.'"

The segment concludes with Stossel and 20/20 host Hugh Downs summarizing
the issue in heart-to-heart conversation. "You want strong laws against
crimes that hurt people," Stossel says, "murder, assault robbery. But
these are people who willingly do this."

"Are consensual crimes really crimes [at all]?" Downs wonders.

"And are laws against them causing more harm than good," Stossel adds.
"Just because we don't like something doesn't mean we can make it go
away with a law."

"No," Downs concludes, "I think that's been proved many times."

A Coffee Shop Called Nouvelle Justine

While prostitution struggles to free itself from decades of social
stigma, s/m (or at least the accouterments of s/m) continues to become
nothing less than positively chic. How else can we explain the
appearance in New York of a new, all day, every day s/m coffeehouse,
would you believe, with the appropriately trendy name Nouvelle Justine.
Here the titillated tourist can sip sweets and flavored coffees while
being treated to the sight of faux dominatrices prancing around in
fashionable leather and latex while doing such campy things as slapping
tables with their whips and issuing commands out of the blue -- orders
like, "You will behave!!"

Oh, my, my, my. Nouvelle Justine indeed! The affect, it turns out, is
strictly for show. Asked if she was really into s/m, one of the whipbrandishing
leatherettes replied, "Oh, no, not at all. I'm just an
actress."

The cafe', not surprisingly, is taking a good deal of heat, both from
feminists who object to the large sign featuring a bound and trussed
woman on the sidewalk out front, and from people who really are into s/m
and who don't appreciate the trappings of their sexual subculture being
appropriated and trivialized by outsiders in the name of attracting
suburban cash. When one of the wandering actresses whipped the table of
a noted domina checking out the scene, and insisted that she behave, she
found herself face to face with an angry woman used to calling the shots
in no uncertain terms. "You don't know who you are talking to," she was
informed in a voice cold as ice. Did the upbraiding pull this wandering
bit of house scenery out of her role? Not at all, I am told. She just
went on to the next table and did the same thing all over again.

I certainly have nothing kind to say about culture vultures out to make
a buck off the latest kinky sexual trend. Still, it's a chuckle that in
the space of a few short years s/m, which recently enough seemed slated
to become the new designated perversion onto which proper society could
pour all its venom and loathing, has now become the sexual kink of
choice among the hipper-than-thou. Not that dressing up in leather and
latex or sipping cappuccinos in the presence of fake dominas really says
anything about people understanding, accepting, or appreciating the
complexities of s/m, but methinks that even the most superficial of
these social-sexual trends does tend to undermine attempts to associate
s/m with the distaste of the gutter.

And while relatively few people may be investigating the nuances of
profound dominance and submission, or the ecstasies of intense
endorphinated pain, I also suspect that lots of people have come to
include a little spanking and bondage in their otherwise vanilla sex
play, and that those people who feel drawn to deeper investigation of
the s/m mysteries are a whole lot less inclined to think of themselves
as pathological perverts than they would have four or five years ago.

P.S.

It would seem that even mainstream crossword puzzlers need to be in the
know about s/m these days. "Part of the curriculum at Texas S&M" reads
one of the theme clues from Merl Reagle's recent "Something's Backed Up"
puzzle in the Examiner magazine section. "Flog courses" (a pun on "golf
courses") is the correct answer. Right up there with "Mary Yak
Cosmetics" ("Most popular makeup in Tibet").

[This column was originally published in Spectator Magazine (see www.spectator.net). If you would like to receive Comes Naturally columns, and other writing by
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